


Upshot

by thegoodthebadandthenerdy



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, I Made Myself Cry, M/M, SO MANY INFINITY WAR SPOILERS, Tumblr Prompt, god i dont even know how to tag this, yep there we go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 13:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14521545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodthebadandthenerdy/pseuds/thegoodthebadandthenerdy
Summary: anonymous asked "tony explaining to ned what happened to peter and ned applying every science fact he knows and doing absolutely everything in his power to get his boyfriend back"





	Upshot

**Author's Note:**

> this isnt the Exact prompt bc 1) ned doesnt need his hero telling him his bf is dead w/o a friendly face in sight [also i Love May hshs] and 2) im dumb and cant write science-y things so sorry yall but this is just a wall of frantic and pure angst
> 
> fun fact: i'd actually toyed around w writing smthn like this (i.e. ned finding out) so shoutout to tht anon for giving me an excuse!!

Ned has been replaying that moment over and over in his head all day.

It's dark out now, he can hear sirens in the distance, see embers mixed with _ashes_ blowing past his window, but it still plays, over and over again.

He ran over it as the bus sharply turned, taking them back to school in quivering silence. As they huddled, all together in the gym awaiting parents and guardians, tears smattering faces and lips.

From the second he had embraced MJ goodbye as his mom had pulled up to the school, to the very second he stood in now, phone in his hand, eyes bloodshot and weary, his brain had let at least one cylinder firing at all times to bring that moment to him.

The last time he'd seen Peter.

The bus, the frantic need for a distraction, that hand on his face where it had found home so many times for so many other reasons. That honest face and that damn martyr complex

His hand clenches around his phone, willing it to just _ring_. It doesn't have to be Peter, not directly, it could be (Miss, his mom would insist) May or Mr. Stark or _Flash_ for all he cares, but he just needs to know that he's okay before his heart drips through his ribcage.

He scrunches his eyes shut before he spirals again, he's already done that once today and he'd rather not relive it. 

He needs to stay focused.

He stumbles back over to his bed, pulling his laptop into his lap and refreshing the page open on the screen. Still no pinpoint on Peter's suit. But that's fine! It's fine! The signal could've cut out due to either one of then could be out of proximity, the tracker could've been jostled - there's an immeasurable amount of explanations (but only about three soften the hammering in his chest.)

He refreshes it again, another, one more time.

" _Please, please, please._ " He doesn't know who he's pleading with anymore. Doesn't know _who_ he should be pleading with in the first place. 

Before he can consider that, the enormity of that question once you factor in things like the known Asgardians and the unknown races out in space, there's a quick knock at his bedroom door.

And he knows.

He knows because it's not Peter. It couldn't be - he hasn't knocked since like, third grade. And it's not either of his moms, and it isn't May because he knows her softness just like that of his own mothers.

It's someone unknown and it's _not Peter_ and Ned _knows_.

The fires outside burn on, sirens continue to shriek. The world keeps spinning, but Ned Leeds' heart stops.

"Come in."

If you had told him a few years ago that Tony Stark would be at his bedroom door, he would've taken you to the nurse's office to check for a concussion.

Funny how things change, right?

Like how someone you think is just your best friend is actually the love of your life.

Life is weird like that.

Tony's face is pale as he takes in Ned's face, but he files in nonetheless, May coming in right behind him.

"Hey, Ned," she says softly, her back to him as she closes the door, but she takes too long. Her body is too contorted. Ned knows.

"You okay?" she adds.

"Where's Peter?" Ned isn't even eighteen yet and he doesn't know everything, but he is not a child and after everything he's been through by her nephew's side she should know he isn't naïve.

"Ned, honey," she starts again, finally turning to face him. 

She has her big glasses on as if they'll distract from the furious veins in the whites of her eyes and red of her nose and the tremble in her fingers. 

"Are you okay?" she repeats. "You weren't hurt, right?"

"I'm fine," he says, looking over to Tony, who hasn't said a word, hasn't met his _eyes_ , has just kept his hands at his sides and his eyes on the posters on his walls.

"That's good, that's really good," May says, pushing her hair back from her face. 

Ned thinks the knowing will swallow him whole at this exact moment. Because there's May, with her face just as open and honest as Peter's, just as warm and friendly, looking at him with _shattered_ eyes.

The knowing is too much, but he needs confirmation.

"Mr. Stark."

He somehow says it without his voice breaking and it fills a corner of his heart with fury that his one miracle for the day was wasted on that.

"Look, kid," Tony starts, still not turning around. "I." He stops, turning to Ned without really _looking_ at him. And Ned is so _pissed_

"With all due respect, Mr. Stark, I'm not-" oh, there's the voice break. But it's angry. Not tired or sad or grief-stricken. It's angry. "I'm not someone who needs to be coddled, and I think right now you owe me a lot, but the truth would be a good start."

There's fire in Tony's eyes, and the downward tilt of his mouth snaps. He snaps.

"You want the truth? The truth is he's gone. I held him in my arms while he died and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it, but now I have to somehow find a way to look you in the eyes and offer you comfort and polite explanations despite the fact that I'm the reason he was there and not with the people he loved. The truth is I failed him and I failed you and I failed her, too," here he points to May. "And I don't have the basic skills to process that, let alone delicately handle this situation because for some reason it was deemed best I was here when you found out because I was up _there_ with him."

He knew it. He knew, he knew, he knew. 

"Ned?" That's May, finally breaking the unbearable, minutes long silence clinging to the very corners of the room. Her voice is coarse, but not wet. She's already cried all her tears for the time being. "What are you doing?"

And it's then that he notices the movement of his hand. The steady clicking motion from his finger.

He's been refreshing the map this whole time. Waiting for a spot that will never appear again because he's _gone, Ned_.

And that's when he starts laughing. Laughing, and laughing, and laughing from the very bottom of his stomach until May eases forward and sits beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, and resting her head there too, while Tony Stark, of all people, watches on with horrified eyes and a slack face.

"We were on the bus together this morning," he manages through his laughter. "And he needed a distraction. May, I didn't even tell him I loved him before he left."

He's slowly deteriorating into these horrible, gut-wrenching sobs, and maybe by association they bring May's back, because as soon as he says that he can feel tears on the sleeve of his shirt.

"He knew, Ned, he knew how much you love him," she says as if it can console him. As if it'll take away the sting in his chest because he chose to wear his earbuds on the bus that morning instead of interacting with his boyfriend, making the last words he ever said _to_ him something stupid and throwaway about some movie news he'd read the night before.

"And he loved you so, so much," she adds. "Okay? So much."

And Ned knows that. 

But now he knows _this_. Knows that he will never hear those words again from Peter's lips, or see his best friend, or hold his hand, or kiss him goodnight after a day of lounging around to play video games and avoid homework. 

"He's _gone_ ," he chokes out, as if saying it will make it make anymore sense. "May, he can't be gone. May-"

"I know, I know," she murmurs. 

Her glasses are digging into him and her words are like a pressure against his throat, but he can't bring himself to ask her to move. She's known him since he was a kid and loved him through all of his weird phases and odd years when she had no obligation to. Just as much as he just…as he just lost Peter, she lost him, too - lost what was left of her family - and so even though Ned feels like he's choking and he can't make it _stop_ , he can't ask her to move.

"You tried everything?" Ned asks, and his scrunched up, tear-tainted eyes are looking at an uncomfortable Tony now. 

He at least has the decency to not try to cover the break-up of his voice from his words as he says, "There wasn't anything _to_ do."

Ned doesn't believe that for even a split-second.

"All that tech you have - even the underground stuff - and there was nothing?" Ned says incredulously, cheeks scrunching up to his eyes in disbelief. "We, we spent _years_ idolizing you- you're supposed to have everything. To be able to fix _everything_."

Tony's face had blanched long ago, but if it hadn't, Ned thought it would've lost all of its color then and there, be as see through as plastic.

"Kid," he says, and any other time it would've filled Ned with anger because he _hated_ to be called that, even if it was by Tony freakin' Stark, but now he can barely form sentences. "There wasn't-"

And Ned finally gets it. No more words needed.

He'd thought it was something real. A knife or a bullet.

Something that made sense.

Something deliberately chosen.

It never occured to him that his best friend could fade away, just like that. Like he wasn't worth the time. 

As if he never existed in the first place.

And that hits harder than any taunting word he's ever received. Every joke and every shove and every harsh look couldn't compare to this moment right here.

Because a bullet can be plucked out, a stab wound sewn shut; comas aren't always permanent, and organs can be replaced.

But this. 

Ned can science his way out of any of those corners. Just give him time.

But _this_.

The floor has disappeared beneath him, the roof gone too. The walls are crumbling.

There isn't even a corner it's just open air and a thundering heartbeat in his throat and tears burning his face and this pit in his stomach so big surely it'll take him, too.

There's nothing to fix. No way out.

Ned's been replaying that moment over and over in his head all day.

It was a movie he couldn't escape the theatre of. There wasn't any character progression or plot, just the same moment over and over again, until the audience had it memorized down to the exact quirk of the other character's lips as he begged his question.

And Ned had never considered that was because it was the final scene.

**Author's Note:**

> im so sad fksjfjsj 
> 
> catch me moaning and groaning abt infinity war on tumblr @desertrosetico !!


End file.
